By Kyle Roberts
RUSTON, La. — Blink, and it’s already spring football time for the Bearcats.
For Ruston High Head Coach Jerrod Baugh, there’s no question: it’s one of his favorite days circled on the calendar.
“Best day of the year,” Baugh said. “You’ve got to have a first day sometime.”
That first day looked different in some ways from the finished product Ruston hopes to become by the fall. The Bearcats welcomed a wave of incoming freshmen and younger players, many of whom were participating in their first varsity-level practice setting.
“It’s a whole different deal,” Baugh said. “All the incoming freshmen are out here, so there’s a lot of people and a lot of people that don’t know the routine. But I’ll tell you what, I thought that everybody got adjusted and it was a pretty good day. It was productive.”
Like most first spring practices, the emphasis was less about polish and more about organization, tempo and learning how to function within the structure of a Ruston practice — and within a program that knows how to be a state champion contender.
The Bearcats began with a pre-practice segment designed to maximize repetitions and help players settle in. Baugh said multiple groups rotated simultaneously on offense and defense, focusing on alignments, formations and responsibilities.
“We came out and did a little pre-practice to give everybody an opportunity,” Baugh said. “There were about three or four groups running on offense and on defense doing some pre-alignment stuff.”
That work had been introduced during athletic periods, but Monday marked the first time the entire roster worked together in one setting.
“It was good to get everybody out here and get lined up to formations and offense run plays,” Baugh said. “Really one last walkthrough type deal before we hit the gas.”
From there, Ruston moved into situational football, an area Baugh has long emphasized as a cornerstone of the program’s identity. The Bearcats worked running game scenarios, short-yardage situations and later transitioned into more passing and long-yardage situations.
Baugh said first-day nerves are common, especially when younger players are trying to remember assignments while processing game scenarios.
“Nobody notices what the down and distance is to start with, just because everybody’s nervous and they’re focused on lining up and what am I supposed to do,” Baugh said. “But as it goes along, if you do it enough times, then once they get comfortable with alignment and what I’m supposed to do, then they can start paying attention to the down and distance and what we need to do.”
One of the more challenging situations of the afternoon put the offense in a difficult spot: first-and-10 from its own 2-yard line.
“The goal there is to get you a couple of first downs, at least where you can punt it and change the field position,” Baugh said.
He liked what he saw from the first unit, which drove the ball away from danger and flipped the field.
“I thought the first group did a good job,” he said. “They drove the ball down the field and got it to the other end. That’s a building point offensively. Defensively, you can’t have that.”
Those moments, Baugh said, create coaching opportunities on both sides of the ball. Ruston planned to spend Tuesday reviewing film as a team before breaking into position groups to correct mistakes and prepare for the next set of practice situations.
“They’ll spend some time team-wise, offense and defense, and then they’ll split up positionally and talk about things specific to their position,” Baugh said. “Hopefully they’ll take the coaching from there and then bring it out tomorrow.”
Ruston also enters spring with notable continuity on the coaching staff and marked the return of associate head coach Kyle Williams, while various middle school coaches also helped Monday because of the large number of participants.
“That’s good,” Baugh said. “They know a lot of the younger guys a little bit better than some of the high school coaches. The kids are comfortable with all the guys that are out here.”
Even with a new roster, Monday’s opening practice carried reminders of the groups that came before it — including a senior class that saw a trip to the Super Dome for four straight years. Baugh praised last year’s team for exceeding expectations and preserving the standard of the program.
“I think everybody was talking about last year being a rebuilding year,” Baugh said. “Nobody expected us to win all the games we won, didn’t expect us to win our district, and then make the run that we did.”
Baugh said that class proved Ruston’s success is rooted in culture as much as star power.
“What a great indication of where our football program is,” Baugh said, “that you don’t have to have five-star Division-I athletes in every class for our football program to stay at the level that it’s staying at.”
He called the departed seniors a hard-working group that led younger players and reinforced expectations daily.
“They really kept the standard, what the standard is around here,” Baugh said. “Very proud of that group.”
Now, the next group has begun its turn. Monday’s practice may have been only the first day of spring ball, but for Ruston, it was also the first day of building what come next — and knowing the standard has been set.
